An Unacceptable Proposal

A groan scraped out like iron dragged across iron.

Makdong's hands moved, shaping a signal.

"The Great General's orders! Raise the signal! We take their great ships!"

Eight years had passed since Makdong took command of the navy. Even without his deputy, Huindungi, the officers who read his face and his hand-signs as if they were spoken words bellowed the orders until their throats tore.

"They're running! Douse the sails! Douse the sails!"

The fuchuan were enormous, their gunwales so high that even if a Black Dragon Ship came alongside, soldiers would have struggled to climb aboard. Yet that vast hull was painfully slow to turn, and because it lived by the wind alone, it could scarcely make speed when it fled in any direction but a following breeze.

Oars thrust from both beams of the Black Dragon Ships drove hard, shoving the water aside with a rhythmic splash and rush. To the quick beat of the drums the sailors worked their whole bodies in practiced unison, and the black ships raced on, cleaving the waves with a light, eager stride. Thirty of them began to close on the great ships crawling away, a wolf pack running down wounded beasts.

Swivel guns mounted along the gunwales spat fire. The strongest armament of all, though — the 9-pounder field guns at the bows — stayed silent. They had not yet reached the place ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠they meant to strike.

"Close in! Dead astern! Stick to their wake and go for the rudder!"

The target the Black Dragon Ships hunted drew near: the stern rudder that kept the great ship running true, now almost under their noses.

"Fire!"

With the roar, flame and smoke veiled everything before their eyes.

"Damn it! It hasn't broken yet! Reload! To starboard — bear off to starboard! Clear the lane for the others!"

The Black Dragon Ship that had loosed its bow gun sheered away, and another drove in behind the great ship in its turn. High on the stern fighting-tower, Muslim soldiers hurriedly leveled their mechanical crossbows. A crackle of shots answered them.

"Aaaagh!"

"Guh—"

They staggered and fell, picked off by the matchlockmen of the Tiger Hunting Army.

"Fire!"

The fuchuan's massive rudder took the pounding one shot after another. When a ball luckily punched clean through the thick timber post, the wood shrieked, could bear no more, and snapped.

"Their rudder's broken!"

"Waaaaah! We broke it!"

The sailors roared their triumph. Makdong only narrowed his eyes and swept a hand through the air.

"The next one! We take the next one! To port — come about to port! That one's the target!"

Like jackals that bite the ankle of a bleeding beast and rip its belly until the guts spill, the Black Dragon Ships clung to the sterns of the floundering, fleeing fuchuan, poured shot into them, and snapped their rudders one by one. Along the waterline, where hull met sea, the small holes multiplied until the leaking could be seen with the naked eye. Even so, flooding of that degree was nowhere near enough to drag so vast a ship under.

Makdong took it all in with a cold gaze, and his lord An Hyeon's charge came back to him.

Makdong and Huindungi had led the navy for a long time. The method the two of them had conceived while actually firing the 9-pounders at sea was to go after the rudder of a great ship. A nimble Black Dragon Ship would target the enemy's stern and smash the rudder; round shot would punch the long hull from stern to bow, killing fighters and sailors alike; and a relentless aim at the waterline would set the ship to filling. Several Black Dragon Ships, hunting as a pack the way they did now, would use speed and handling to strike, sheer off, and lay their fire in turn.

What they learned in the fight itself was not wholly satisfying.

"It—it missed!"

"I told you to aim properly!"

In training, the naval gunners had struck the rafts set out as targets readily enough. Amid the violent pitch and heave of battle, hitting an enemy ship as they had aimed proved another matter. The rudder was a fair-sized mark in its own right, yet small against the whole of the hull, and striking it true was harder still. Even so, if you pound a thing from one side long enough, it gives in the end.

"Great General! The enemy ships are all adrift!"

At a glance a ship might seem able to run straight even without a rudder, but wind and current shift without cease. Unless a helmsman holds the rudder and answers them constantly, no heading can be kept. However vast a sailing ship, once its rudder is wrecked it circles in place or drifts off in some wrong direction.

"We won! We won!"

"His Grace the Duke of Yue! Ten thousand years! Ten thousand years!"

Makdong accepted, in silence, a victory that left him not entirely satisfied.

I watched, unblinking, as our assault ships and Black Dragon Ships closed on the enemy fuchuan — unable to flee, merely drifting — and came alongside. Few of them resisted. One or two tried, ate a pounding of round shot for it, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and the rest began throwing down their weapons and surrendering.

"So. This man's name is Hussein?"

"Y-yes, my lord!"

The man prostrate on the deck, staring up at me, was Hasan. He nodded, eyes uneasy, and answered.

"Sa'if al-Din of Fuzhou. What relation is this Hussein to him?"

"Th-the amir of the Ispah army — that is, their leader — is a man in Quanzhou called Amirdin. The na'ib holding Fuzhou now, their deputy commander, is Sa'if al-Din, and this Hussein is a qa'id, one of the captains, the one who leads the navy..."

I listened as the Arab captain Hasan poured out information I had not even asked for. The core of the Ispah forces, he said, were followers of Imam Ali — Shi'a. He himself kept the Sunna, the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad; he was Sunni. The Muslims who lived mainly in Quanzhou were plainly not one body.

"I-I hadn't the tiniest scrap of a thought of joining the rebellion! Th-those heretics dragged us by force, put us aboard, and said we were going off to fight..."

"Is this the whole of the Ispah navy?"

"What?"

I cut through his excuses and asked, and he hurried to nod, the words tumbling out.

"The elites most skilled with ships are all in this lot. There are still plenty of ships in Zaiton — no, in Quanzhou — but men as brave as these, as good at fighting on the sea, won't be left among them."

"Hm. Is that so."

If the wretch was telling the truth, then command of the sea was already in my hands, and Fuzhou was wholly cut off. Whether I could trust him was another matter...

"The heretic troops in Fuzhou number four thousand in all! And the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Nanren under them — the southern Chinese soldiers — are about ten thousand, mostly bandit scum..."

The men who had come charging over the gunwales shouting Allahu Akbar had been brave enough; most of them resisted until the moment before death. Hasan, the Arab captain who had stayed with the ship, and his crew had surrendered at once. They were cooperative to a man, and their faces looked less Arab than—

"M-most of us settled in Quanzhou back under the old Song! We've all taken wives here, so we're different from those Persian bastards! We follow the laws of the realm..."

I raised a hand and quieted the babbling fellow. Hasan stared at me, swallowing hard, drawn tight as a bowstring. I could not put full faith in his words, but in truth it hardly mattered. What mattered was this.

"Very well. I'll spare you. No — I'll set you free outright and let you go back."

"T-truly? Thank you!"

"In exchange, you'll run one errand for me."

I smiled faintly at Hasan, who watched me rigid with tension.

"I'll write you a letter. Take it to Fuzhou. Deliver it to Pingzhang Zhengshi Buqa Temür, and to that deputy commander, the one called Sa'if al-Din."

"I-I will! Whatever you order, I'll do my utmost..."

They had struck the first blow, so the justification was solid enough. Even so, Buqa Temür was a Mongol noble of some standing, a man whose house had served generation after generation as high officials at court. Simply attacking him could leave trouble in its wake. And if I sent as envoy someone who had come under me — Liu Ji, or Won Cheon-rok — and they were detained, or lost their heads, that would be no small problem, would it?

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

"What? What did you say? Annihilated? All of them?"

"Y-yes. H-here..."

With trembling hands Sa'if al-Din opened the wooden box Hasan had brought. Hussein, the brother in the faith whose brow he had kissed in greeting only days before, stared up at him from within — blood-soaked, his drained face twisted.

"What in the world happened? Our Ispah navy — our navy lost to the infidels?"

Sa'if al-Din shot to his feet, seized Hasan by the collar, and snarled.

"Why? For what reason did you lose!"

"I-it was the cannon! They fired cannon! Every time thunder rolled on every side, splinters flew and men died..."

Hasan shouted, flustered. Sa'if al-Din stared at him as if he could not believe his ears.

"You mean a bowl-mouth gun, or a general's cannon? They fired those great pieces that fling chunks of stone?"

"I-it's a weapon of Shaytan, nothing like those! A bowl-mouth gun hurls stones at best, no better than a trebuchet, but what the Duke of Yue's navy fired couldn't even be seen!"

"Couldn't even be seen?"

"I saw it with my own two eyes! They came from four or five times bowshot, and they struck true every time..."

Terrified that Sa'if al-Din, a Shi'a, might brand him a Sunni traitor and have him killed, Hasan spilled his excuses in a rush.

"The shield-planks on the gunwale were punched clean through! And it didn't stop there — men's heads flew off, and the men behind them died as well. If that isn't a weapon of Shaytan, what is it?"

"Does that even make sense? Where is there a weapon like that?"

Barood — gunpowder, come out of the East — was no stranger to them, nor were the firearms that loaded it into barrels of iron or bronze and sent it forth. But were those pieces not still weaker even than the manganiq, the mangonel? Smaller and lighter than a trebuchet, which took long to build, and able to frighten an enemy with their thunder, they were only just coming into wider use. Firing them from a pitching ship, though, at four or five times bowshot, at a speed the eye could not follow?

"I saw it clear with my own eyes! It's true! I even watched the Duke of Yue's navy shoot our great ships' rudders to pieces with those cannon..."

Sa'if al-Din listened to the boasting with eyes full of doubt, then waved a hand.

"Enough of this useless talk. So. That Duke of Yue let you go?"

"Yes. He said to deliver this letter to His Excellency Buqa Temür and to the na'ib..."

Hasan swallowed, drew the letter from his breast, and offered it up. The moment Sa'if al-Din flicked a hand at him, he scrambled out of the office without a backward glance.

Sa'if al-Din called a clerk and had him read the letter, written in literary Chinese. The local man's face went white, and he stumbled over the lines.

Sa'if al-Din snarled at the stammering clerk.

"Keep reading! Quickly!"

"Give it here! Give it here!"

Sa'if al-Din snatched the letter and tore it to shreds. His officers murmured, their faces dark.

"Th-the navy's been wiped out. What do we do now? At this rate, isn't even a retreat to Quanzhou impossible?"

"Better to go by land, through Xinghua..."

"Idiot! You think the righteous militias of Xinghua will stand by and watch us pass? After we plundered them last time, those infidels grind their teeth the moment they see us!"

Sa'if al-Din looked over his agitated men, then slammed a hand down on the desk and shouted.

"What do you mean, what do we do? We hold this city, obviously! You think they'll let us live?"

"B-but..."

"Even if we mean to return to Quanzhou, we drive them off first and go after! By sea or by land, if they come after us it's the end!"

At that the murmuring officers nodded.

"Here — the walls of Fuzhou are impregnable! If the warriors of the faith hold as one heart, they will never cross those walls!"

"Mm. That's true."

"Certainly, if all we have to do is hold out..."

Those who had been shaken found a little of their calm again. The grain taken when they seized the Fuzhou circuit was ample enough to keep the city for several months, and the walls were high and thick, the channels, the river, and the moat beyond them deep.

"However many they are, they're thirty thousand! They'll have to hold Funing as well, so it'll be less than that. Twice our strength at the very most!"

Having soothed his officers, Sa'if al-Din gave orders to tighten the defense.

"First, get a grip on the local soldiers we brought from Quanzhou and Xinghua. If there's no betrayal from within, the walls are safe. Give them gold and silver, and coax them with the promise of still greater rewards if we win!"

"We will, na'ib!"

"Mount crossbows on the walls and increase the guards on watch. Secure the keys to the granaries, and keep a strict watch on the officials of the Fujian Branch Secretariat as well..."

While the council was still underway, someone came suddenly into the office. It was Buqa Temür, Pingzhang Zhengshi of the Fujian Branch Secretariat.

"Your Excellency the Pingzhang Zhengshi. You've come?"

"What's this — you fought the Duke of Yue's fleet? What is this talk? What have you done?"

Buqa Temür pressed him with angry eyes, and Sa'if al-Din ground his teeth.

"There was something of a misunderstanding."

"Misunderstanding, hell! Did I not tell you? Do nothing rash. Leave everything to me, and wait!"

Buqa Temür beat his chest as if he could not breathe.

"Attacking the new Pingzhang Zhengshi appointed by the court at Khanbaliq! Because of you — because of you, even I am saddled with the name of a traitor! How in the world..."

"Then what would you have us do?"

"Wh-what?"

Faced with Sa'if al-Din's chilling stare, Buqa Temür could not go on, and only stammered.

"You mean to hand us over to him like this? Sell us off and clear yourself of the charge of treason — is that the idea?"

"No, man! Right now—"

Sa'if al-Din turned his head and shouted to the guards.

"Escort His Excellency out! It seems he is unwell!"

"Yes, na'ib!"

Muslim guards seized both his arms, and Buqa Temür cried out in panic.

"Y-you there! Don't do this! Don't leave a regret to last a thousand autumns..."

Sa'if al-Din watched him dragged away, then turned to his officers.

"The officials of the Fujian Branch Secretariat may stab us in the back. Arrest every one of them for now, and lock them in one place."

"Yes! Understood!"

"We'll move the troops at once!"

Sa'if al-Din had resolved to withstand a siege against the Duke of Yue's army. At his command the Ispah forces, who until then had worn the shell of government troops, threw off the mask. In an instant they seized Fuzhou completely — the better to stand against the army that would come swarming in.